adminTIGER WOODS insists he is not yet “buried and done” and claims he still has Jack Nicklaus’s record haul of 18 majors in his sights. Woods won the last of his 14 majors, the US Open, in 2008 and has arrived in St Andrew’s for this week’s Open having not lifted the Claret Jug since 2006. A once dominant figure, Woods is now a rank outsider with bookmakers for golf’s biggest events.
A routine Woods motivator, though, is proving people wrong. When asked if he accepts the Nicklaus target looks a step too far, the 39-year-old Woods replied: “No, not at all. I’m still young. I’m not 40 yet.
“I know some of you guys think I’m buried and done but I’m still right here in front of you. I love playing, I love competing and I love playing these events.
“I’m always nervous. That first tee shot, I’m nervous. I care about what I do and when I’m not nervous is the day I quit. That means I really don’t care what I’m doing out there. I want to feel the rush, I want to feel the nerves. It’s just a matter of how do you handle it. I think I’ve done a pretty good job over my career of handling it and winning events here and there. I just enjoy playing tournament golf and I enjoy competing at the highest level against the best players in the world. It’s exciting for me to get up there on that first tee knowing that it’s time to go, and let’s try and go beat these guys.”
Woods was equally bold when pressed on whether he had ever contemplated quitting since early 2014, when he underwent nerve surgery and suffered a subsequent and serious dip in form.
“Well, retirement? I don’t have any AARP [Association of American Retired People] card yet, so I’m a long way from that,” Woods added. “I feel like my body is finally healed up from the surgery. They say it takes you about four to six months to get back but I’ve heard a lot of guys on Tour who have had the surgery, and other athletes, say it takes over a year to get back. I think they were there probably closer to being right, it being a full year to get back.
“It would have been one thing if I would have gone through the procedure and then had the same golf swing, but I’ve changed the golf swing, too, on top of that, and so that was kind of a double dipper there where I had to fight both at the same time.
“I’m hitting the ball much, much more solid. I’m controlling my flights. I’m coming in here being able to shape the golf ball not only both ways but also having changed my trajectories, as well, and being very comfortable changing my trajectories. That’s something that I feel you have to do here on this golf course.
“The previous majors [last year] were a little bit more difficult. I was still learning a new golf swing. Last year coming off surgery on my back and trying to get back and trying to get my feels back, meanwhile trying to make a swing change all at the same time, was very difficult. I had some pretty apparent flaws in my technique. That’s one of the reasons why I shut it down and consequently I was able to turn things around. I had a chance to win the Masters this year.”
The eventual and runaway victor at Augusta, Jordan Spieth, arrived at the Old Course on Monday having never sampled the Fife links in a competitive round. Part of Spieth’s Open buildup involved playing the venue on a simulator in his home. Woods, however, hinted at the drawbacks of such preparation.
“He’s playing well, obviously,” said Woods of Spieth.
“He’s won two major championships and just won [the John Deere Classic] last week. Obviously he’s in great form. It’s just a matter of going out there and executing his gameplan.
That’s what he talks about a lot, formulating a gameplan and executing it, and this is a golf course in which you have to do that.
“It’s about understanding how to play the golf course under various winds. You can see the golf course on a simulator and it’s fantastic. I’ve seen it. But playing in the different winds and having to hit the different shots, shaping shots completely differently from one day to the next on the same hole, it does help seeing the golf course under different winds. This is my fifth Open here, I’ve seen a lot of different winds.”
Of St Andrew’s, Woods added: “Obviously it’s the home of golf, we all know that. But to me it’s brilliant, how you can play it so many different ways. I’ve always wanted to play it backwards, one time before I die. I want to play from 1 to 17, 2 to 16, so forth and so on. I think that would be just a blast because I can see how certain bunkers — why would they put that there?
“And then if you play it backwards, you see it. It’s very apparent. That’s totally in play. That one day would be a lot of fun to be able to do.” — Guardian
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter